Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

published:30 Jun 2017

views:68555

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

published:09 Nov 2017

views:113451

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

published:17 Nov 2017

views:13095

Americans are inherently a little crazy. But now the crazy is being enabled by politicians in the White House and by the internet. How exactly did it get so bad?
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in New England who wanted to create and did create a Christian utopia and theocracy as they waited for the eminent second coming of Christ and the end of days. And in the south by a bunch of people who were convinced, absolutely convinced that this place they’d never been was full of gold just to be plucked from the dirt in Virginia and they stayed there looking and hoping for gold for 20 years before they finally faced the facts and the evidence and decided that they weren’t going to get rich overnight there. So that was the beginning. And then we’ve had centuries of buyer-beware charlatanism to an extreme degree and medical quackery to an extreme degree and increasingly exotic extravagant implausible religions over and over again from Mormonism to Christian Science to Scientology in the last century.
And we’ve had this antiestablishment "I’m not going to trust the experts, I’m not going to trust the elite" from our character from the beginning. Now all those things came together and were super-charged in the 1960s when you were entitled to your own truth and your own reality. Then a generation later when the Internet came along, giving each of those realities, no matter how false or magical or nutty they are, their own kind of media infrastructure. We had entertainment, again for the last couple hundred years, but especially in the last 50 years permeating all the rest of life, including Presidential politics from John F. Kennedy through RonaldRagan to Bill Clinton. So the thing was set up for Donald Trump to exploit all these various American threads and astonishingly become president, but then you look at this history and it’s like no we should have seen this coming.
The idea of America from the beginning was that you could come here, reinvent yourself, be anybody you want, live any way you wanted, believe any thing you wanted. For the first few hundred years, like everywhere else in the world, celebrity and fame were a result of some kind of accomplishment or achievement, sometimes not a great accomplishment or achievement, but you did something in the world to earn renown. America really was the key place that invented the modern celebrity culture, which was, beginning a century ago, more and more not necessarily about having won a war or led a people or written a great book or painted a great painting, but about being famous, fame for its own sake. We created that, we created Hollywood, we created the whole culture industry and that then became what I call the fantasy industrial complex where, certainly in the last few decades more than ever more than anybody thought possible before, fame itself, however you’ve got it, was a primary goal for people. And again, as so many of the things I talk about in Fantasyland, not uniquely to America but more here than anywhere. And then you get reality television, which was this unholy hybrid of the fictional and the real for the last now generation where that blur between what’s real and what’s not is pumped into our media stream willy-nilly. There are now more reality shows on television than there were shows on television 20 years ago. And that’s another way for nobodies to become famous overnight. YouTube, another way for nobodies to become a famous overnight for doing almost nothing or nothing.

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

published:18 Jan 2018

views:200049

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all the way to the White House, Anderson doesn't find it at all surprising that Americans might have a hard time telling what's true from what's false. He calls it the fantasy-industrial complex, and it might just be America's beautifully branded nightmare. Kurt Andersen's new book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-america-got-lost-in-a-dream-celebrity-hollywood-disneyland
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: All kinds of modern, amazing things were happening at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the United States of America, and the movies and Hollywood were one of those things that we kind of, I think, we have lost track of what a quantum shift watching movies represented for the experience of life. Sure there had been actors and plays before, but first of all the glut of entertainment that suddenly existed and the almost phantasmagorical quality of watching real people moving around that weren’t in front of you but in some netherworld in film, and they were really in London or India or the Yukon or wherever, and time was suddenly changed, it went from childhood to adulthood—everything about the cinema, we have to understand what a huge change that was and how mutable it seemed to make reality. So you take that—the fact of cinema, TV, video, everything we now for five generations have taken as the way things are—it gave us, and especially Americans, obviously French people and English people as well, this idea that reality was mutable. Then on top of that and with that you have this celebrity culture where there are, by orders of magnitude, suddenly more celebrities. In the19th century and earlier there were famous people, but just a few of them, and now there were hundreds and then eventually thousands of famous people who were now famous for pretending to be somebody else: actors. That was a strange new condition.
And so for a long time, for much of the 20th century, people looked up to movie stars because they seem to have real potency in this world where individuals seem more and more part of a mass. Here were the people, because they were famous and because we watched them and stared at them and dreamed about them, they were like superheroes or demigods. So by the end of the 20th century or before the end of the 20th century, who wouldn’t—if you’re an American steeped in this movie and television culture—want to be famous? Maybe there’s no reason for you to be famous but, my god, only famous people have real agency in the world. So we got to that point, where fame is its own end. You also—again, there’s advertising everywhere, but advertising and the advertising industry were really an American invention, starting way back in the 1800s when, for instance, the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison was the first marketed, advertised presidential candidate. He was this rich guy who they wanted to rebrand as a humble guy who had grown up in a log cabin, so log cabins became his icon, his branding symbol, and they made real big ones and little ones and liquor and facial creams in log cabin containers, and they made chants and songs, and he won by a landslide over a guy who was actually of humble origins.
So advertising as part of this fantasy-industrial complex that is so American and so defining of America has been a big part of what we’re talking about as well. Disneyland: I love Disneyland, but when it was created in the 1950s, not just as a little amusement park to promote Walt Disney’s animated films but as this other version of reality that was real—it was there, you could go there and buy things at these old-fashioned shops on Main Street USA with actors, but they were selling you stuff.

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "right to bear arms" really mean? What was a firearm in the 1790s, and what is a firearm now? "Compared to [the] many, many, many rounds-per-second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine." Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-the-second-amendment-how-the-gun-control-debate-went-crazy
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: We all now know about the Second Amendment. We hear about it all the time. It is a huge driver of our politics on the Right. What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment.
Here’s the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state—“ Let me repeat that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Well, first of all: what did that mean, the Second Amendment, back in the 1780s and 1790s when the Constitution and its first amendments were written?
It meant, because the new United States would have no standing army, that any armed defense of the States or the United States would depend on militia who would be mobilized to fight the fights they needed to fight. So there’s that. Another important fact about the state of play when this amendment was written was the nature of arms themselves, of guns. A really good shooter could fire three or four rounds a minute—and that’s a really good one with these poorly aimed muskets and early rifles that they had.
So that was what was being regulated. It was, “Oh, let’s have a militia and they can use these guns,” which were the state of the art, but compared to many, many, many rounds per second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine.
So fast forward—or slow forward. For centuries of the Second Amendment didn’t really come up. People had guns; they hunted. Not everybody, but that’s what happened, they used them for protection in rare cases, but it wasn’t a big deal until starting in the 1960s when suddenly in a matter of months and a few years a presidential candidate, the great leader of African America and freedom Martin Luther King were killed, and other people attacked by assassins. Suddenly it seemed to reasonable people that, “Oh, we should have some controls on who can get guns how easily.”
So we enacted some very modest regulations about registrations and limiting certain kinds of cheap weapons and so forth. And back then in the late '60s and even in the early ’70s the National Rifle Association was reasonable, was fine. Okay yeah they negotiated these laws but they were okay.
Then, as so many things were going haywire in the national discourse in the late '70s, the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby more generally went out of its mind, to be blunt, and decided to be absolutists, that there would be no regulation of guns and we would fight any regulation of guns, and, moreover that was all driven by a fantasy that the Federal Government was about to confiscate all of our guns that every individual had.
So suddenly the Second Amendment became a thing that people were aware of and it was driving this passionate, fervent political faction. The NRA, by the way, changed its motto from one about safe sporting and so forth to quoting the Second Amendment.
But still for a while, for 20 years, the courts weren’t buying this idea that the Second Amendment meant that we could not regulate the ownership of guns or the sales of guns. And by the way, we'd allowed: ”Oh, you can’t buy machine guns, you can’t have a sawed-off shotgun.” Those things happened over the course of the 20th century, and nobody said boo.

published:16 Feb 2018

views:92295

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

Kurt Andersen

Journalism

Andersen was born in Omaha, Nebraska and graduated from Westside High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he edited the Harvard Lampoon. In 1986 with E. Graydon Carter he co-founded Spy magazine, which they sold in 1991; it continued publishing until 1998. He has been a writer and columnist for New York ("The Imperial City"), The New Yorker ("The Culture Industry"), and Time ("Spectator"). Gene Shalit, in the acknowledgments to his 1987 book Laughing Matters, thanked Andersen, who "provided support, a keen mind, and essential advice, particularly during the crucial formative stages; tipped me off to some pieces unfamiliar to me ... ; and contributed the ... Afterword." He was also the architecture and design critic for Time for nine years.

In 1996, Bill Reilly fired Andersen after two and a half years from his position as editor-in-chief at New York, citing the publication's financial results. Andersen attributed the firing to his refusal to kill a story about a rivalry between investment bankers Felix Rohatyn and Steven Rattner that had upset Henry Kravis, the principal of the publishing firm's ownership group.

Content

The ad starts with scenes of everyday American life over soft humming and gentle guitar strumming. As the line, "let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together" plays in the background, a middle-aged couple dances at a small Bernie Sanders for President rally. Then Sanders is seen speaking to a few people in a backyard. As the ad continues, the crowds grow larger and more enthusiastic. A montage of many Sanders supporters appear, as the words "They've all come to look for America" flash on the screen. Sanders is then seen addressing a large outdoor gathering, interacting one-on-one with supporters, appearing before more energetic crowds, finally ending in a large auditorium filled to capacity with cheering people.

Alec Baldwin

Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, producer, and comedian. As a member of the Baldwin family, he is the oldest of the four Baldwin brothers, all well-known actors.

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

5:28

Kurt Andersen on Donald Trump and Fantasyland – BBC Newsnight

Kurt Andersen on Donald Trump and Fantasyland – BBC Newsnight

Kurt Andersen on Donald Trump and Fantasyland – BBC Newsnight

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

Alec Baldwin and Kurt Andersen, "You Can't Spell America Without ME"

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

Americans are inherently a little crazy. But now the crazy is being enabled by politicians in the White House and by the internet. How exactly did it get so bad?
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in New England who wanted to create and did create a Christian utopia and theocracy as they waited for the eminent second coming of Christ and the end of days. And in the south by a bunch of people who were convinced, absolutely convinced that this place they’d never been was full of gold just to be plucked from the dirt in Virginia and they stayed there looking and hoping for gold for 20 years before they finally faced the facts and the evidence and decided that they weren’t going to get rich overnight there. So that was the beginning. And then we’ve had centuries of buyer-beware charlatanism to an extreme degree and medical quackery to an extreme degree and increasingly exotic extravagant implausible religions over and over again from Mormonism to Christian Science to Scientology in the last century.
And we’ve had this antiestablishment "I’m not going to trust the experts, I’m not going to trust the elite" from our character from the beginning. Now all those things came together and were super-charged in the 1960s when you were entitled to your own truth and your own reality. Then a generation later when the Internet came along, giving each of those realities, no matter how false or magical or nutty they are, their own kind of media infrastructure. We had entertainment, again for the last couple hundred years, but especially in the last 50 years permeating all the rest of life, including Presidential politics from John F. Kennedy through RonaldRagan to Bill Clinton. So the thing was set up for Donald Trump to exploit all these various American threads and astonishingly become president, but then you look at this history and it’s like no we should have seen this coming.
The idea of America from the beginning was that you could come here, reinvent yourself, be anybody you want, live any way you wanted, believe any thing you wanted. For the first few hundred years, like everywhere else in the world, celebrity and fame were a result of some kind of accomplishment or achievement, sometimes not a great accomplishment or achievement, but you did something in the world to earn renown. America really was the key place that invented the modern celebrity culture, which was, beginning a century ago, more and more not necessarily about having won a war or led a people or written a great book or painted a great painting, but about being famous, fame for its own sake. We created that, we created Hollywood, we created the whole culture industry and that then became what I call the fantasy industrial complex where, certainly in the last few decades more than ever more than anybody thought possible before, fame itself, however you’ve got it, was a primary goal for people. And again, as so many of the things I talk about in Fantasyland, not uniquely to America but more here than anywhere. And then you get reality television, which was this unholy hybrid of the fictional and the real for the last now generation where that blur between what’s real and what’s not is pumped into our media stream willy-nilly. There are now more reality shows on television than there were shows on television 20 years ago. And that’s another way for nobodies to become famous overnight. YouTube, another way for nobodies to become a famous overnight for doing almost nothing or nothing.

How religion turned American politics against science | Kurt Andersen

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all the way to the White House, Anderson doesn't find it at all surprising that Americans might have a hard time telling what's true from what's false. He calls it the fantasy-industrial complex, and it might just be America's beautifully branded nightmare. Kurt Andersen's new book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-america-got-lost-in-a-dream-celebrity-hollywood-disneyland
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: All kinds of modern, amazing things were happening at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the United States of America, and the movies and Hollywood were one of those things that we kind of, I think, we have lost track of what a quantum shift watching movies represented for the experience of life. Sure there had been actors and plays before, but first of all the glut of entertainment that suddenly existed and the almost phantasmagorical quality of watching real people moving around that weren’t in front of you but in some netherworld in film, and they were really in London or India or the Yukon or wherever, and time was suddenly changed, it went from childhood to adulthood—everything about the cinema, we have to understand what a huge change that was and how mutable it seemed to make reality. So you take that—the fact of cinema, TV, video, everything we now for five generations have taken as the way things are—it gave us, and especially Americans, obviously French people and English people as well, this idea that reality was mutable. Then on top of that and with that you have this celebrity culture where there are, by orders of magnitude, suddenly more celebrities. In the19th century and earlier there were famous people, but just a few of them, and now there were hundreds and then eventually thousands of famous people who were now famous for pretending to be somebody else: actors. That was a strange new condition.
And so for a long time, for much of the 20th century, people looked up to movie stars because they seem to have real potency in this world where individuals seem more and more part of a mass. Here were the people, because they were famous and because we watched them and stared at them and dreamed about them, they were like superheroes or demigods. So by the end of the 20th century or before the end of the 20th century, who wouldn’t—if you’re an American steeped in this movie and television culture—want to be famous? Maybe there’s no reason for you to be famous but, my god, only famous people have real agency in the world. So we got to that point, where fame is its own end. You also—again, there’s advertising everywhere, but advertising and the advertising industry were really an American invention, starting way back in the 1800s when, for instance, the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison was the first marketed, advertised presidential candidate. He was this rich guy who they wanted to rebrand as a humble guy who had grown up in a log cabin, so log cabins became his icon, his branding symbol, and they made real big ones and little ones and liquor and facial creams in log cabin containers, and they made chants and songs, and he won by a landslide over a guy who was actually of humble origins.
So advertising as part of this fantasy-industrial complex that is so American and so defining of America has been a big part of what we’re talking about as well. Disneyland: I love Disneyland, but when it was created in the 1950s, not just as a little amusement park to promote Walt Disney’s animated films but as this other version of reality that was real—it was there, you could go there and buy things at these old-fashioned shops on Main Street USA with actors, but they were selling you stuff.

The Second Amendment: How the gun control debate went crazy | Kurt Anderson

The Second Amendment: How the gun control debate went crazy | Kurt Anderson

The Second Amendment: How the gun control debate went crazy | Kurt Anderson

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "right to bear arms" really mean? What was a firearm in the 1790s, and what is a firearm now? "Compared to [the] many, many, many rounds-per-second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine." Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-the-second-amendment-how-the-gun-control-debate-went-crazy
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: We all now know about the Second Amendment. We hear about it all the time. It is a huge driver of our politics on the Right. What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment.
Here’s the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state—“ Let me repeat that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Well, first of all: what did that mean, the Second Amendment, back in the 1780s and 1790s when the Constitution and its first amendments were written?
It meant, because the new United States would have no standing army, that any armed defense of the States or the United States would depend on militia who would be mobilized to fight the fights they needed to fight. So there’s that. Another important fact about the state of play when this amendment was written was the nature of arms themselves, of guns. A really good shooter could fire three or four rounds a minute—and that’s a really good one with these poorly aimed muskets and early rifles that they had.
So that was what was being regulated. It was, “Oh, let’s have a militia and they can use these guns,” which were the state of the art, but compared to many, many, many rounds per second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine.
So fast forward—or slow forward. For centuries of the Second Amendment didn’t really come up. People had guns; they hunted. Not everybody, but that’s what happened, they used them for protection in rare cases, but it wasn’t a big deal until starting in the 1960s when suddenly in a matter of months and a few years a presidential candidate, the great leader of African America and freedom Martin Luther King were killed, and other people attacked by assassins. Suddenly it seemed to reasonable people that, “Oh, we should have some controls on who can get guns how easily.”
So we enacted some very modest regulations about registrations and limiting certain kinds of cheap weapons and so forth. And back then in the late '60s and even in the early ’70s the National Rifle Association was reasonable, was fine. Okay yeah they negotiated these laws but they were okay.
Then, as so many things were going haywire in the national discourse in the late '70s, the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby more generally went out of its mind, to be blunt, and decided to be absolutists, that there would be no regulation of guns and we would fight any regulation of guns, and, moreover that was all driven by a fantasy that the Federal Government was about to confiscate all of our guns that every individual had.
So suddenly the Second Amendment became a thing that people were aware of and it was driving this passionate, fervent political faction. The NRA, by the way, changed its motto from one about safe sporting and so forth to quoting the Second Amendment.
But still for a while, for 20 years, the courts weren’t buying this idea that the Second Amendment meant that we could not regulate the ownership of guns or the sales of guns. And by the way, we'd allowed: ”Oh, you can’t buy machine guns, you can’t have a sawed-off shotgun.” Those things happened over the course of the 20th century, and nobody said boo.

2:14

The Cultural Factors Driving America's Departure From Reality

The Cultural Factors Driving America's Departure From Reality

The Cultural Factors Driving America's Departure From Reality

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic hosted by Jeffrey Goldberg (Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic), Matt Thompson (Deputy Editor, The Atlantic), and Alex Wagner (Co-host, CBS This Morning: Saturday; Contributing Editor, The Atlantic). We're living in historic times. Who better than a 160-year-old magazine to help you make sense of them? Each week, The Atlantic's top editors sit down with leading voices to explore what's happening in the world, how things became the way they are, and where they're going next.

TRUMP: The "FANTASYLAND" President (MSNBC)

Commentary: Kurt Andersen on the need for facts

"Alternative facts," "fake news," bogus medical claims, conspiracies and "truthiness" - examples of an aversion to facts and science that some Americans cling to, and which dogs our political and social discourse today. Authorand radio host Kurt Andersen ("Fantasyland") talks about why it's important to remember SenatorDaniel Moynihan's famous quote, "You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts."
Subscribe to the "CBS Sunday Morning" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/20gXwJT
Get more of "CBS Sunday Morning" HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlMmAz
Follow "CBS Sunday Morning" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/23XunIh
Like "CBS Sunday Morning" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1UUe0pY
Follow "CBS Sunday Morning" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1RquoQb
Follow "CBS Sunday Morning" on Google+ HERE: http://bit.ly/1O3jk4x
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
---
"CBS Sunday Morning" features stories on the arts, music, nature, entertainment, sports, history, science, Americana and highlights unique human accomplishments and achievements. Check local listings for CBS Sunday Morning broadcast times.

19:10

A culture stuck on pause in a fast-forward age: Kurt Andersen at TEDxNewEngland

A culture stuck on pause in a fast-forward age: Kurt Andersen at TEDxNewEngland

A culture stuck on pause in a fast-forward age: Kurt Andersen at TEDxNewEngland

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of the look and feel of culture and daily life have hardly changed at all.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

"Fantasyland" Author Kurt Andersen / Introducing InPen

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps. Stacey talks to Tony Galliani from Companion Medical about the product and the company.
-----
Get our App and listen to DiabetesConnections wherever you go!
Click here for iPhone Click here for AndroidSign up for our newsletter here
As always, thanks for listening!!

9:55

A look at America's relationship with the truth

A look at America's relationship with the truth

A look at America's relationship with the truth

Kurt Andersen, contributor for "The Atlantic," joins CBSN to discuss his September cover story, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." The article details America's long and complicated relationship with the truth.
Subscribe to the "CBSN" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Re2MgS
Watch "CBSN" live HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7
Follow "CBSN" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1PO0dkx
Like "CBSN" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1o3Deb4
Follow "CBSN" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1V4qhIu
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
---
CBSN is the first digital streaming news network that will allow Internet-connected consumers to watch live, anchored news coverage on their connected TV and other devices. At launch, the network is available 24/7 and makes all of the resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with live, anchored coverage 15 hours each weekday. CBSN. Always On.

Andersen, Kurt Filmography

Famous quotes by Kurt Andersen:

"It's high and low (culture), and we're casting a net wide. Almost everyone knows of these things; it's not like we're bringing them some obscure things."

"We got 200 e-mails (about it). Lots of people had the same reaction. They were assigned to read it in school and didn't. We try to take things that sometimes people turn off of because they're introduced to them too early or for some other reason, and try to make them entertaining."

"We're focusing on particular works — films, books, pieces of music, architecture — that deserve the name 'icon' and have this influence on our culture. Everybody knows those things, but almost because they're icons, people don't look below the fact of them."

"When I talk to college students about Spy, it's like I'm describing something that happened in the 19th century. We were very lucky. We started Spy at a time when our generation had arrived at full adulthood and wanted to connect to its anti-establishment youth."

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

Kurt Andersen on Donald Trump and Fantasyland – BBC Newsnight

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

Americans are inherently a little crazy. But now the crazy is being enabled by politicians in the White House and by the internet. How exactly did it get so bad?
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in New England who wanted to create and did create a Christian utopia and theocracy as they waited for the eminent second coming of Christ and the end of days. And in the south by a bunch of people who were convinced, absolutely convinced that this place they’d...

How religion turned American politics against science | Kurt Andersen

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were al...

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all ...

The Second Amendment: How the gun control debate went crazy | Kurt Anderson

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "rig...

published: 16 Feb 2018

The Cultural Factors Driving America's Departure From Reality

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic ho...

A culture stuck on pause in a fast-forward age: Kurt Andersen at TEDxNewEngland

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of the look and feel of culture and daily life have hardly changed at all.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

"Fantasyland" Author Kurt Andersen / Introducing InPen

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps...

published: 05 Sep 2017

A look at America's relationship with the truth

Kurt Andersen, contributor for "The Atlantic," joins CBSN to discuss his September cover story, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." The article details America's long and complicated relationship with the truth.
Subscribe to the "CBSN" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Re2MgS
Watch "CBSN" live HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7
Follow "CBSN" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1PO0dkx
Like "CBSN" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1o3Deb4
Follow "CBSN" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1V4qhIu
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news ...

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles t...

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

Americans are inherently a little crazy. But now the crazy is being enabled by politicians in the White House and by the internet. How exactly did it get so bad...

Americans are inherently a little crazy. But now the crazy is being enabled by politicians in the White House and by the internet. How exactly did it get so bad?
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in New England who wanted to create and did create a Christian utopia and theocracy as they waited for the eminent second coming of Christ and the end of days. And in the south by a bunch of people who were convinced, absolutely convinced that this place they’d never been was full of gold just to be plucked from the dirt in Virginia and they stayed there looking and hoping for gold for 20 years before they finally faced the facts and the evidence and decided that they weren’t going to get rich overnight there. So that was the beginning. And then we’ve had centuries of buyer-beware charlatanism to an extreme degree and medical quackery to an extreme degree and increasingly exotic extravagant implausible religions over and over again from Mormonism to Christian Science to Scientology in the last century.
And we’ve had this antiestablishment "I’m not going to trust the experts, I’m not going to trust the elite" from our character from the beginning. Now all those things came together and were super-charged in the 1960s when you were entitled to your own truth and your own reality. Then a generation later when the Internet came along, giving each of those realities, no matter how false or magical or nutty they are, their own kind of media infrastructure. We had entertainment, again for the last couple hundred years, but especially in the last 50 years permeating all the rest of life, including Presidential politics from John F. Kennedy through RonaldRagan to Bill Clinton. So the thing was set up for Donald Trump to exploit all these various American threads and astonishingly become president, but then you look at this history and it’s like no we should have seen this coming.
The idea of America from the beginning was that you could come here, reinvent yourself, be anybody you want, live any way you wanted, believe any thing you wanted. For the first few hundred years, like everywhere else in the world, celebrity and fame were a result of some kind of accomplishment or achievement, sometimes not a great accomplishment or achievement, but you did something in the world to earn renown. America really was the key place that invented the modern celebrity culture, which was, beginning a century ago, more and more not necessarily about having won a war or led a people or written a great book or painted a great painting, but about being famous, fame for its own sake. We created that, we created Hollywood, we created the whole culture industry and that then became what I call the fantasy industrial complex where, certainly in the last few decades more than ever more than anybody thought possible before, fame itself, however you’ve got it, was a primary goal for people. And again, as so many of the things I talk about in Fantasyland, not uniquely to America but more here than anywhere. And then you get reality television, which was this unholy hybrid of the fictional and the real for the last now generation where that blur between what’s real and what’s not is pumped into our media stream willy-nilly. There are now more reality shows on television than there were shows on television 20 years ago. And that’s another way for nobodies to become famous overnight. YouTube, another way for nobodies to become a famous overnight for doing almost nothing or nothing.

Americans are inherently a little crazy. But now the crazy is being enabled by politicians in the White House and by the internet. How exactly did it get so bad?
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in New England who wanted to create and did create a Christian utopia and theocracy as they waited for the eminent second coming of Christ and the end of days. And in the south by a bunch of people who were convinced, absolutely convinced that this place they’d never been was full of gold just to be plucked from the dirt in Virginia and they stayed there looking and hoping for gold for 20 years before they finally faced the facts and the evidence and decided that they weren’t going to get rich overnight there. So that was the beginning. And then we’ve had centuries of buyer-beware charlatanism to an extreme degree and medical quackery to an extreme degree and increasingly exotic extravagant implausible religions over and over again from Mormonism to Christian Science to Scientology in the last century.
And we’ve had this antiestablishment "I’m not going to trust the experts, I’m not going to trust the elite" from our character from the beginning. Now all those things came together and were super-charged in the 1960s when you were entitled to your own truth and your own reality. Then a generation later when the Internet came along, giving each of those realities, no matter how false or magical or nutty they are, their own kind of media infrastructure. We had entertainment, again for the last couple hundred years, but especially in the last 50 years permeating all the rest of life, including Presidential politics from John F. Kennedy through RonaldRagan to Bill Clinton. So the thing was set up for Donald Trump to exploit all these various American threads and astonishingly become president, but then you look at this history and it’s like no we should have seen this coming.
The idea of America from the beginning was that you could come here, reinvent yourself, be anybody you want, live any way you wanted, believe any thing you wanted. For the first few hundred years, like everywhere else in the world, celebrity and fame were a result of some kind of accomplishment or achievement, sometimes not a great accomplishment or achievement, but you did something in the world to earn renown. America really was the key place that invented the modern celebrity culture, which was, beginning a century ago, more and more not necessarily about having won a war or led a people or written a great book or painted a great painting, but about being famous, fame for its own sake. We created that, we created Hollywood, we created the whole culture industry and that then became what I call the fantasy industrial complex where, certainly in the last few decades more than ever more than anybody thought possible before, fame itself, however you’ve got it, was a primary goal for people. And again, as so many of the things I talk about in Fantasyland, not uniquely to America but more here than anywhere. And then you get reality television, which was this unholy hybrid of the fictional and the real for the last now generation where that blur between what’s real and what’s not is pumped into our media stream willy-nilly. There are now more reality shows on television than there were shows on television 20 years ago. And that’s another way for nobodies to become famous overnight. YouTube, another way for nobodies to become a famous overnight for doing almost nothing or nothing.

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all the way to the White House, Anderson doesn't find it at all surprising that Americans might have a hard time telling what's true from what's false. He calls it the fantasy-industrial complex, and it might just be America's beautifully branded nightmare. Kurt Andersen's new book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-america-got-lost-in-a-dream-celebrity-hollywood-disneyland
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: All kinds of modern, amazing things were happening at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the United States of America, and the movies and Hollywood were one of those things that we kind of, I think, we have lost track of what a quantum shift watching movies represented for the experience of life. Sure there had been actors and plays before, but first of all the glut of entertainment that suddenly existed and the almost phantasmagorical quality of watching real people moving around that weren’t in front of you but in some netherworld in film, and they were really in London or India or the Yukon or wherever, and time was suddenly changed, it went from childhood to adulthood—everything about the cinema, we have to understand what a huge change that was and how mutable it seemed to make reality. So you take that—the fact of cinema, TV, video, everything we now for five generations have taken as the way things are—it gave us, and especially Americans, obviously French people and English people as well, this idea that reality was mutable. Then on top of that and with that you have this celebrity culture where there are, by orders of magnitude, suddenly more celebrities. In the19th century and earlier there were famous people, but just a few of them, and now there were hundreds and then eventually thousands of famous people who were now famous for pretending to be somebody else: actors. That was a strange new condition.
And so for a long time, for much of the 20th century, people looked up to movie stars because they seem to have real potency in this world where individuals seem more and more part of a mass. Here were the people, because they were famous and because we watched them and stared at them and dreamed about them, they were like superheroes or demigods. So by the end of the 20th century or before the end of the 20th century, who wouldn’t—if you’re an American steeped in this movie and television culture—want to be famous? Maybe there’s no reason for you to be famous but, my god, only famous people have real agency in the world. So we got to that point, where fame is its own end. You also—again, there’s advertising everywhere, but advertising and the advertising industry were really an American invention, starting way back in the 1800s when, for instance, the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison was the first marketed, advertised presidential candidate. He was this rich guy who they wanted to rebrand as a humble guy who had grown up in a log cabin, so log cabins became his icon, his branding symbol, and they made real big ones and little ones and liquor and facial creams in log cabin containers, and they made chants and songs, and he won by a landslide over a guy who was actually of humble origins.
So advertising as part of this fantasy-industrial complex that is so American and so defining of America has been a big part of what we’re talking about as well. Disneyland: I love Disneyland, but when it was created in the 1950s, not just as a little amusement park to promote Walt Disney’s animated films but as this other version of reality that was real—it was there, you could go there and buy things at these old-fashioned shops on Main Street USA with actors, but they were selling you stuff.

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all the way to the White House, Anderson doesn't find it at all surprising that Americans might have a hard time telling what's true from what's false. He calls it the fantasy-industrial complex, and it might just be America's beautifully branded nightmare. Kurt Andersen's new book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-america-got-lost-in-a-dream-celebrity-hollywood-disneyland
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: All kinds of modern, amazing things were happening at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the United States of America, and the movies and Hollywood were one of those things that we kind of, I think, we have lost track of what a quantum shift watching movies represented for the experience of life. Sure there had been actors and plays before, but first of all the glut of entertainment that suddenly existed and the almost phantasmagorical quality of watching real people moving around that weren’t in front of you but in some netherworld in film, and they were really in London or India or the Yukon or wherever, and time was suddenly changed, it went from childhood to adulthood—everything about the cinema, we have to understand what a huge change that was and how mutable it seemed to make reality. So you take that—the fact of cinema, TV, video, everything we now for five generations have taken as the way things are—it gave us, and especially Americans, obviously French people and English people as well, this idea that reality was mutable. Then on top of that and with that you have this celebrity culture where there are, by orders of magnitude, suddenly more celebrities. In the19th century and earlier there were famous people, but just a few of them, and now there were hundreds and then eventually thousands of famous people who were now famous for pretending to be somebody else: actors. That was a strange new condition.
And so for a long time, for much of the 20th century, people looked up to movie stars because they seem to have real potency in this world where individuals seem more and more part of a mass. Here were the people, because they were famous and because we watched them and stared at them and dreamed about them, they were like superheroes or demigods. So by the end of the 20th century or before the end of the 20th century, who wouldn’t—if you’re an American steeped in this movie and television culture—want to be famous? Maybe there’s no reason for you to be famous but, my god, only famous people have real agency in the world. So we got to that point, where fame is its own end. You also—again, there’s advertising everywhere, but advertising and the advertising industry were really an American invention, starting way back in the 1800s when, for instance, the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison was the first marketed, advertised presidential candidate. He was this rich guy who they wanted to rebrand as a humble guy who had grown up in a log cabin, so log cabins became his icon, his branding symbol, and they made real big ones and little ones and liquor and facial creams in log cabin containers, and they made chants and songs, and he won by a landslide over a guy who was actually of humble origins.
So advertising as part of this fantasy-industrial complex that is so American and so defining of America has been a big part of what we’re talking about as well. Disneyland: I love Disneyland, but when it was created in the 1950s, not just as a little amusement park to promote Walt Disney’s animated films but as this other version of reality that was real—it was there, you could go there and buy things at these old-fashioned shops on Main Street USA with actors, but they were selling you stuff.

The Second Amendment: How the gun control debate went crazy | Kurt Anderson

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there ...

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "right to bear arms" really mean? What was a firearm in the 1790s, and what is a firearm now? "Compared to [the] many, many, many rounds-per-second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine." Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-the-second-amendment-how-the-gun-control-debate-went-crazy
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: We all now know about the Second Amendment. We hear about it all the time. It is a huge driver of our politics on the Right. What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment.
Here’s the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state—“ Let me repeat that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Well, first of all: what did that mean, the Second Amendment, back in the 1780s and 1790s when the Constitution and its first amendments were written?
It meant, because the new United States would have no standing army, that any armed defense of the States or the United States would depend on militia who would be mobilized to fight the fights they needed to fight. So there’s that. Another important fact about the state of play when this amendment was written was the nature of arms themselves, of guns. A really good shooter could fire three or four rounds a minute—and that’s a really good one with these poorly aimed muskets and early rifles that they had.
So that was what was being regulated. It was, “Oh, let’s have a militia and they can use these guns,” which were the state of the art, but compared to many, many, many rounds per second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine.
So fast forward—or slow forward. For centuries of the Second Amendment didn’t really come up. People had guns; they hunted. Not everybody, but that’s what happened, they used them for protection in rare cases, but it wasn’t a big deal until starting in the 1960s when suddenly in a matter of months and a few years a presidential candidate, the great leader of African America and freedom Martin Luther King were killed, and other people attacked by assassins. Suddenly it seemed to reasonable people that, “Oh, we should have some controls on who can get guns how easily.”
So we enacted some very modest regulations about registrations and limiting certain kinds of cheap weapons and so forth. And back then in the late '60s and even in the early ’70s the National Rifle Association was reasonable, was fine. Okay yeah they negotiated these laws but they were okay.
Then, as so many things were going haywire in the national discourse in the late '70s, the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby more generally went out of its mind, to be blunt, and decided to be absolutists, that there would be no regulation of guns and we would fight any regulation of guns, and, moreover that was all driven by a fantasy that the Federal Government was about to confiscate all of our guns that every individual had.
So suddenly the Second Amendment became a thing that people were aware of and it was driving this passionate, fervent political faction. The NRA, by the way, changed its motto from one about safe sporting and so forth to quoting the Second Amendment.
But still for a while, for 20 years, the courts weren’t buying this idea that the Second Amendment meant that we could not regulate the ownership of guns or the sales of guns. And by the way, we'd allowed: ”Oh, you can’t buy machine guns, you can’t have a sawed-off shotgun.” Those things happened over the course of the 20th century, and nobody said boo.

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "right to bear arms" really mean? What was a firearm in the 1790s, and what is a firearm now? "Compared to [the] many, many, many rounds-per-second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine." Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-the-second-amendment-how-the-gun-control-debate-went-crazy
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: We all now know about the Second Amendment. We hear about it all the time. It is a huge driver of our politics on the Right. What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment.
Here’s the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state—“ Let me repeat that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Well, first of all: what did that mean, the Second Amendment, back in the 1780s and 1790s when the Constitution and its first amendments were written?
It meant, because the new United States would have no standing army, that any armed defense of the States or the United States would depend on militia who would be mobilized to fight the fights they needed to fight. So there’s that. Another important fact about the state of play when this amendment was written was the nature of arms themselves, of guns. A really good shooter could fire three or four rounds a minute—and that’s a really good one with these poorly aimed muskets and early rifles that they had.
So that was what was being regulated. It was, “Oh, let’s have a militia and they can use these guns,” which were the state of the art, but compared to many, many, many rounds per second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine.
So fast forward—or slow forward. For centuries of the Second Amendment didn’t really come up. People had guns; they hunted. Not everybody, but that’s what happened, they used them for protection in rare cases, but it wasn’t a big deal until starting in the 1960s when suddenly in a matter of months and a few years a presidential candidate, the great leader of African America and freedom Martin Luther King were killed, and other people attacked by assassins. Suddenly it seemed to reasonable people that, “Oh, we should have some controls on who can get guns how easily.”
So we enacted some very modest regulations about registrations and limiting certain kinds of cheap weapons and so forth. And back then in the late '60s and even in the early ’70s the National Rifle Association was reasonable, was fine. Okay yeah they negotiated these laws but they were okay.
Then, as so many things were going haywire in the national discourse in the late '70s, the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby more generally went out of its mind, to be blunt, and decided to be absolutists, that there would be no regulation of guns and we would fight any regulation of guns, and, moreover that was all driven by a fantasy that the Federal Government was about to confiscate all of our guns that every individual had.
So suddenly the Second Amendment became a thing that people were aware of and it was driving this passionate, fervent political faction. The NRA, by the way, changed its motto from one about safe sporting and so forth to quoting the Second Amendment.
But still for a while, for 20 years, the courts weren’t buying this idea that the Second Amendment meant that we could not regulate the ownership of guns or the sales of guns. And by the way, we'd allowed: ”Oh, you can’t buy machine guns, you can’t have a sawed-off shotgun.” Those things happened over the course of the 20th century, and nobody said boo.

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic hosted by Jeffrey Goldberg (Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic), Matt Thompson (Deputy Editor, The Atlantic), and Alex Wagner (Co-host, CBS This Morning: Saturday; Contributing Editor, The Atlantic). We're living in historic times. Who better than a 160-year-old magazine to help you make sense of them? Each week, The Atlantic's top editors sit down with leading voices to explore what's happening in the world, how things became the way they are, and where they're going next.

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic hosted by Jeffrey Goldberg (Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic), Matt Thompson (Deputy Editor, The Atlantic), and Alex Wagner (Co-host, CBS This Morning: Saturday; Contributing Editor, The Atlantic). We're living in historic times. Who better than a 160-year-old magazine to help you make sense of them? Each week, The Atlantic's top editors sit down with leading voices to explore what's happening in the world, how things became the way they are, and where they're going next.

A culture stuck on pause in a fast-forward age: Kurt Andersen at TEDxNewEngland

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of ...

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of the look and feel of culture and daily life have hardly changed at all.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of the look and feel of culture and daily life have hardly changed at all.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps. Stacey talks to Tony Galliani from Companion Medical about the product and the company.
-----
Get our App and listen to DiabetesConnections wherever you go!
Click here for iPhone Click here for AndroidSign up for our newsletter here
As always, thanks for listening!!

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps. Stacey talks to Tony Galliani from Companion Medical about the product and the company.
-----
Get our App and listen to DiabetesConnections wherever you go!
Click here for iPhone Click here for AndroidSign up for our newsletter here
As always, thanks for listening!!

Kurt Andersen, contributor for "The Atlantic," joins CBSN to discuss his September cover story, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." The article details America's long and complicated relationship with the truth.
Subscribe to the "CBSN" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Re2MgS
Watch "CBSN" live HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7
Follow "CBSN" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1PO0dkx
Like "CBSN" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1o3Deb4
Follow "CBSN" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1V4qhIu
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
---
CBSN is the first digital streaming news network that will allow Internet-connected consumers to watch live, anchored news coverage on their connected TV and other devices. At launch, the network is available 24/7 and makes all of the resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with live, anchored coverage 15 hours each weekday. CBSN. Always On.

Kurt Andersen, contributor for "The Atlantic," joins CBSN to discuss his September cover story, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." The article details America's long and complicated relationship with the truth.
Subscribe to the "CBSN" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Re2MgS
Watch "CBSN" live HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7
Follow "CBSN" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1PO0dkx
Like "CBSN" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1o3Deb4
Follow "CBSN" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1V4qhIu
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
---
CBSN is the first digital streaming news network that will allow Internet-connected consumers to watch live, anchored news coverage on their connected TV and other devices. At launch, the network is available 24/7 and makes all of the resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with live, anchored coverage 15 hours each weekday. CBSN. Always On.

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

Big Think Interview With Kurt Andersen

Kurt Andersen on Donald Trump and Fantasyland – BBC Newsnight

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

published: 08 Nov 2017

A culture stuck on pause in a fast-forward age: Kurt Andersen at TEDxNewEngland

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of the look and feel of culture and daily life have hardly changed at all.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

The Cultural Factors Driving America's Departure From Reality

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

published: 08 Aug 2017

How religion turned American politics against science | Kurt Andersen

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were al...

published: 18 Jan 2018

Religious Enthusiasm in America, With Kurt Andersen

Kurt Andersen discusses religious enthusiasm, entrepreneurism, and entertainment in America that is unlike other developed countries.
For more interviews visit:
Be sure to subscribe for daily interviews and content with our experts!
Like Us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/genconnectU
Follow Us on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/genconnectU
Visit our Website:
http://www.genconnectU.com

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all ...

FANTASYLAND AUTHOR: THE ASSAULT ON THE TRUTH IS NOTHING NEW

You can go back to the Puritans and realize this country has always had an odd relationship with the truth. Belief in UFO's, the Loch Ness Monster and alligators in the sewers have always been with us. But Kurt Anderson, author of Fantasyland, argues we're living through a time when "falsehoods, untruths and fantasies are rampant," when "the preposterous, the untrue, the unproven and the false has been allowed to freely flow into the American discourse" as never before.

A look at America's relationship with the truth

Kurt Andersen, contributor for "The Atlantic," joins CBSN to discuss his September cover story, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." The article details America's long and complicated relationship with the truth.
Subscribe to the "CBSN" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Re2MgS
Watch "CBSN" live HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7
Follow "CBSN" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1PO0dkx
Like "CBSN" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1o3Deb4
Follow "CBSN" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1V4qhIu
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news ...

published: 10 Aug 2017

"Fantasyland" Author Kurt Andersen / Introducing InPen

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps...

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles t...

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington.
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCNewsnight
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/bbcnewsnight

A culture stuck on pause in a fast-forward age: Kurt Andersen at TEDxNewEngland

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of ...

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of the look and feel of culture and daily life have hardly changed at all.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

The last two decades have been marked by trans-formative new technologies and political economics while paradoxically, for the first time in a century, much of the look and feel of culture and daily life have hardly changed at all.
About TEDx:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

Kurt Andersen’s cover story “How AmericaLost Its Mind” argues that “being American means we can believe anything we want.” This is due to a combination of the new-age mentality born out of the 1960s that encouraged Americans to find their own truth and the internet age, which has allowed us to create communities that reinforce our beliefs. According to Andersen, the perfect manifestation of America’s journey away from reality is the election of Donald Trump.
Read more in The Atlantic’s September 2017 cover story: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

Religious Enthusiasm in America, With Kurt Andersen

Kurt Andersen discusses religious enthusiasm, entrepreneurism, and entertainment in America that is unlike other developed countries.
For more interviews visi...

Kurt Andersen discusses religious enthusiasm, entrepreneurism, and entertainment in America that is unlike other developed countries.
For more interviews visit:
Be sure to subscribe for daily interviews and content with our experts!
Like Us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/genconnectU
Follow Us on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/genconnectU
Visit our Website:
http://www.genconnectU.com

Kurt Andersen discusses religious enthusiasm, entrepreneurism, and entertainment in America that is unlike other developed countries.
For more interviews visit:
Be sure to subscribe for daily interviews and content with our experts!
Like Us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/genconnectU
Follow Us on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/genconnectU
Visit our Website:
http://www.genconnectU.com

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all the way to the White House, Anderson doesn't find it at all surprising that Americans might have a hard time telling what's true from what's false. He calls it the fantasy-industrial complex, and it might just be America's beautifully branded nightmare. Kurt Andersen's new book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-america-got-lost-in-a-dream-celebrity-hollywood-disneyland
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: All kinds of modern, amazing things were happening at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the United States of America, and the movies and Hollywood were one of those things that we kind of, I think, we have lost track of what a quantum shift watching movies represented for the experience of life. Sure there had been actors and plays before, but first of all the glut of entertainment that suddenly existed and the almost phantasmagorical quality of watching real people moving around that weren’t in front of you but in some netherworld in film, and they were really in London or India or the Yukon or wherever, and time was suddenly changed, it went from childhood to adulthood—everything about the cinema, we have to understand what a huge change that was and how mutable it seemed to make reality. So you take that—the fact of cinema, TV, video, everything we now for five generations have taken as the way things are—it gave us, and especially Americans, obviously French people and English people as well, this idea that reality was mutable. Then on top of that and with that you have this celebrity culture where there are, by orders of magnitude, suddenly more celebrities. In the19th century and earlier there were famous people, but just a few of them, and now there were hundreds and then eventually thousands of famous people who were now famous for pretending to be somebody else: actors. That was a strange new condition.
And so for a long time, for much of the 20th century, people looked up to movie stars because they seem to have real potency in this world where individuals seem more and more part of a mass. Here were the people, because they were famous and because we watched them and stared at them and dreamed about them, they were like superheroes or demigods. So by the end of the 20th century or before the end of the 20th century, who wouldn’t—if you’re an American steeped in this movie and television culture—want to be famous? Maybe there’s no reason for you to be famous but, my god, only famous people have real agency in the world. So we got to that point, where fame is its own end. You also—again, there’s advertising everywhere, but advertising and the advertising industry were really an American invention, starting way back in the 1800s when, for instance, the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison was the first marketed, advertised presidential candidate. He was this rich guy who they wanted to rebrand as a humble guy who had grown up in a log cabin, so log cabins became his icon, his branding symbol, and they made real big ones and little ones and liquor and facial creams in log cabin containers, and they made chants and songs, and he won by a landslide over a guy who was actually of humble origins.
So advertising as part of this fantasy-industrial complex that is so American and so defining of America has been a big part of what we’re talking about as well. Disneyland: I love Disneyland, but when it was created in the 1950s, not just as a little amusement park to promote Walt Disney’s animated films but as this other version of reality that was real—it was there, you could go there and buy things at these old-fashioned shops on Main Street USA with actors, but they were selling you stuff.

The start of the 20th century was the birth of a strange new reality in the United States. The advent of the moving image, of Hollywood and sudden celebrity, caused a quantum shift in how Americans thought about the experience of life. Actors were elevated to the status of superheroes and demigods, and those left in the obscurity of the masses began to desire that elusive privilege: fame. But where America really went haywire, author Kurt Andersen explains, is when the cult of celebrity and the cult of capitalism merged: it was the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A bizarre reality where advertising met animation. You could buy real wares, from fake characters, in real stores, with make-believe themes. "What happened in Disneyland... did not stay there," says Andersen. From Mickey Mouse all the way to the White House, Anderson doesn't find it at all surprising that Americans might have a hard time telling what's true from what's false. He calls it the fantasy-industrial complex, and it might just be America's beautifully branded nightmare. Kurt Andersen's new book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-america-got-lost-in-a-dream-celebrity-hollywood-disneyland
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: All kinds of modern, amazing things were happening at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the United States of America, and the movies and Hollywood were one of those things that we kind of, I think, we have lost track of what a quantum shift watching movies represented for the experience of life. Sure there had been actors and plays before, but first of all the glut of entertainment that suddenly existed and the almost phantasmagorical quality of watching real people moving around that weren’t in front of you but in some netherworld in film, and they were really in London or India or the Yukon or wherever, and time was suddenly changed, it went from childhood to adulthood—everything about the cinema, we have to understand what a huge change that was and how mutable it seemed to make reality. So you take that—the fact of cinema, TV, video, everything we now for five generations have taken as the way things are—it gave us, and especially Americans, obviously French people and English people as well, this idea that reality was mutable. Then on top of that and with that you have this celebrity culture where there are, by orders of magnitude, suddenly more celebrities. In the19th century and earlier there were famous people, but just a few of them, and now there were hundreds and then eventually thousands of famous people who were now famous for pretending to be somebody else: actors. That was a strange new condition.
And so for a long time, for much of the 20th century, people looked up to movie stars because they seem to have real potency in this world where individuals seem more and more part of a mass. Here were the people, because they were famous and because we watched them and stared at them and dreamed about them, they were like superheroes or demigods. So by the end of the 20th century or before the end of the 20th century, who wouldn’t—if you’re an American steeped in this movie and television culture—want to be famous? Maybe there’s no reason for you to be famous but, my god, only famous people have real agency in the world. So we got to that point, where fame is its own end. You also—again, there’s advertising everywhere, but advertising and the advertising industry were really an American invention, starting way back in the 1800s when, for instance, the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison was the first marketed, advertised presidential candidate. He was this rich guy who they wanted to rebrand as a humble guy who had grown up in a log cabin, so log cabins became his icon, his branding symbol, and they made real big ones and little ones and liquor and facial creams in log cabin containers, and they made chants and songs, and he won by a landslide over a guy who was actually of humble origins.
So advertising as part of this fantasy-industrial complex that is so American and so defining of America has been a big part of what we’re talking about as well. Disneyland: I love Disneyland, but when it was created in the 1950s, not just as a little amusement park to promote Walt Disney’s animated films but as this other version of reality that was real—it was there, you could go there and buy things at these old-fashioned shops on Main Street USA with actors, but they were selling you stuff.

FANTASYLAND AUTHOR: THE ASSAULT ON THE TRUTH IS NOTHING NEW

You can go back to the Puritans and realize this country has always had an odd relationship with the truth. Belief in UFO's, the Loch Ness Monster and alligator...

You can go back to the Puritans and realize this country has always had an odd relationship with the truth. Belief in UFO's, the Loch Ness Monster and alligators in the sewers have always been with us. But Kurt Anderson, author of Fantasyland, argues we're living through a time when "falsehoods, untruths and fantasies are rampant," when "the preposterous, the untrue, the unproven and the false has been allowed to freely flow into the American discourse" as never before.

You can go back to the Puritans and realize this country has always had an odd relationship with the truth. Belief in UFO's, the Loch Ness Monster and alligators in the sewers have always been with us. But Kurt Anderson, author of Fantasyland, argues we're living through a time when "falsehoods, untruths and fantasies are rampant," when "the preposterous, the untrue, the unproven and the false has been allowed to freely flow into the American discourse" as never before.

Kurt Andersen, contributor for "The Atlantic," joins CBSN to discuss his September cover story, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." The article details America's long and complicated relationship with the truth.
Subscribe to the "CBSN" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Re2MgS
Watch "CBSN" live HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7
Follow "CBSN" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1PO0dkx
Like "CBSN" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1o3Deb4
Follow "CBSN" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1V4qhIu
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
---
CBSN is the first digital streaming news network that will allow Internet-connected consumers to watch live, anchored news coverage on their connected TV and other devices. At launch, the network is available 24/7 and makes all of the resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with live, anchored coverage 15 hours each weekday. CBSN. Always On.

Kurt Andersen, contributor for "The Atlantic," joins CBSN to discuss his September cover story, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." The article details America's long and complicated relationship with the truth.
Subscribe to the "CBSN" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Re2MgS
Watch "CBSN" live HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7
Follow "CBSN" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1PO0dkx
Like "CBSN" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1o3Deb4
Follow "CBSN" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1V4qhIu
Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBSNews delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T
Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
---
CBSN is the first digital streaming news network that will allow Internet-connected consumers to watch live, anchored news coverage on their connected TV and other devices. At launch, the network is available 24/7 and makes all of the resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with live, anchored coverage 15 hours each weekday. CBSN. Always On.

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps. Stacey talks to Tony Galliani from Companion Medical about the product and the company.
-----
Get our App and listen to DiabetesConnections wherever you go!
Click here for iPhone Click here for AndroidSign up for our newsletter here
As always, thanks for listening!!

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps. Stacey talks to Tony Galliani from Companion Medical about the product and the company.
-----
Get our App and listen to DiabetesConnections wherever you go!
Click here for iPhone Click here for AndroidSign up for our newsletter here
As always, thanks for listening!!

Kurt Andersen reads from Fantasyland

Kurt Andersen takes the long view on fake news in his new book "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History", arguing that huckstering has always been part of America's DNA.
WGBHForumNetwork ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas
Like us: http://facebook.com/wgbhforum
Tweet with us: http://twitter.com/ForumNetwork
See our complete archive here: http://forum-network.org

published: 23 May 2018

Waking Up with Sam Harris #103 - American Fantasies with Kurt Andersen

The Second Amendment: How the gun control debate went crazy | Kurt Anderson

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "rig...

published: 16 Feb 2018

How religion turned American politics against science | Kurt Andersen

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were al...

published: 18 Jan 2018

Big Think 2017 Top Ten: #8. Kurt Anderson on the American Tradition of Delusional Thinking

At the time of the Civil War, society had become split by two sides that refused to listen to each other. Back then, the political and social divide is stoked by a hyperbolic partisan media where anyone could publish whatever they wanted in a pamphlet without fact-checking. Sound familiar?
Americans reshaping reality to fit their needs is nothing new, explains Kurt Anderson in our #8 video of the year.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in N...

Kurt Andersen on climate change

In this clip from Overheard, author Kurt Andersen argues that climate change deniers are successful in convincing others that climate change isn't occurring in part because of human gullibility.
------
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/overheardpbs
Facebook: facebook.com/overheardwithevansmith
Full length episodes online: http://www.klru.org/overheard

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic ho...

Kurt Andersen takes the long view on fake news in his new book "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History", arguing that huckstering has always been part of America's DNA.
WGBHForumNetwork ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas
Like us: http://facebook.com/wgbhforum
Tweet with us: http://twitter.com/ForumNetwork
See our complete archive here: http://forum-network.org

Kurt Andersen takes the long view on fake news in his new book "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History", arguing that huckstering has always been part of America's DNA.
WGBHForumNetwork ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas
Like us: http://facebook.com/wgbhforum
Tweet with us: http://twitter.com/ForumNetwork
See our complete archive here: http://forum-network.org

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

The Second Amendment: How the gun control debate went crazy | Kurt Anderson

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there ...

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "right to bear arms" really mean? What was a firearm in the 1790s, and what is a firearm now? "Compared to [the] many, many, many rounds-per-second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine." Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-the-second-amendment-how-the-gun-control-debate-went-crazy
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: We all now know about the Second Amendment. We hear about it all the time. It is a huge driver of our politics on the Right. What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment.
Here’s the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state—“ Let me repeat that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Well, first of all: what did that mean, the Second Amendment, back in the 1780s and 1790s when the Constitution and its first amendments were written?
It meant, because the new United States would have no standing army, that any armed defense of the States or the United States would depend on militia who would be mobilized to fight the fights they needed to fight. So there’s that. Another important fact about the state of play when this amendment was written was the nature of arms themselves, of guns. A really good shooter could fire three or four rounds a minute—and that’s a really good one with these poorly aimed muskets and early rifles that they had.
So that was what was being regulated. It was, “Oh, let’s have a militia and they can use these guns,” which were the state of the art, but compared to many, many, many rounds per second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine.
So fast forward—or slow forward. For centuries of the Second Amendment didn’t really come up. People had guns; they hunted. Not everybody, but that’s what happened, they used them for protection in rare cases, but it wasn’t a big deal until starting in the 1960s when suddenly in a matter of months and a few years a presidential candidate, the great leader of African America and freedom Martin Luther King were killed, and other people attacked by assassins. Suddenly it seemed to reasonable people that, “Oh, we should have some controls on who can get guns how easily.”
So we enacted some very modest regulations about registrations and limiting certain kinds of cheap weapons and so forth. And back then in the late '60s and even in the early ’70s the National Rifle Association was reasonable, was fine. Okay yeah they negotiated these laws but they were okay.
Then, as so many things were going haywire in the national discourse in the late '70s, the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby more generally went out of its mind, to be blunt, and decided to be absolutists, that there would be no regulation of guns and we would fight any regulation of guns, and, moreover that was all driven by a fantasy that the Federal Government was about to confiscate all of our guns that every individual had.
So suddenly the Second Amendment became a thing that people were aware of and it was driving this passionate, fervent political faction. The NRA, by the way, changed its motto from one about safe sporting and so forth to quoting the Second Amendment.
But still for a while, for 20 years, the courts weren’t buying this idea that the Second Amendment meant that we could not regulate the ownership of guns or the sales of guns. And by the way, we'd allowed: ”Oh, you can’t buy machine guns, you can’t have a sawed-off shotgun.” Those things happened over the course of the 20th century, and nobody said boo.

The gun control debate has been at fever pitch for several years now, and as things fail to change the stats get grimmer. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since the 2012Sandy HookElementary school massacre, where 20 first graders and six adults were killed. Six years later, 438 more people have been shot in schools, and for 138 of them it was fatal. Here, journalist and author Kurt Anderson reads the Second Amendment, and explains its history from 1791 all the way to now. "What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment," says Andersen. It's only in the last 50 years that the gun debate has gone haywire, and it was the moment the NRA went from reasonable to absolutist. So what does the "right to bear arms" really mean? What was a firearm in the 1790s, and what is a firearm now? "Compared to [the] many, many, many rounds-per-second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine." Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-the-second-amendment-how-the-gun-control-debate-went-crazy
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: We all now know about the Second Amendment. We hear about it all the time. It is a huge driver of our politics on the Right. What people need to know is that the Second Amendment only recently became such a salient amendment.
Here’s the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state—“ Let me repeat that: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Well, first of all: what did that mean, the Second Amendment, back in the 1780s and 1790s when the Constitution and its first amendments were written?
It meant, because the new United States would have no standing army, that any armed defense of the States or the United States would depend on militia who would be mobilized to fight the fights they needed to fight. So there’s that. Another important fact about the state of play when this amendment was written was the nature of arms themselves, of guns. A really good shooter could fire three or four rounds a minute—and that’s a really good one with these poorly aimed muskets and early rifles that they had.
So that was what was being regulated. It was, “Oh, let’s have a militia and they can use these guns,” which were the state of the art, but compared to many, many, many rounds per second firearms that we have today, it’s the same word but virtually a different machine.
So fast forward—or slow forward. For centuries of the Second Amendment didn’t really come up. People had guns; they hunted. Not everybody, but that’s what happened, they used them for protection in rare cases, but it wasn’t a big deal until starting in the 1960s when suddenly in a matter of months and a few years a presidential candidate, the great leader of African America and freedom Martin Luther King were killed, and other people attacked by assassins. Suddenly it seemed to reasonable people that, “Oh, we should have some controls on who can get guns how easily.”
So we enacted some very modest regulations about registrations and limiting certain kinds of cheap weapons and so forth. And back then in the late '60s and even in the early ’70s the National Rifle Association was reasonable, was fine. Okay yeah they negotiated these laws but they were okay.
Then, as so many things were going haywire in the national discourse in the late '70s, the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby more generally went out of its mind, to be blunt, and decided to be absolutists, that there would be no regulation of guns and we would fight any regulation of guns, and, moreover that was all driven by a fantasy that the Federal Government was about to confiscate all of our guns that every individual had.
So suddenly the Second Amendment became a thing that people were aware of and it was driving this passionate, fervent political faction. The NRA, by the way, changed its motto from one about safe sporting and so forth to quoting the Second Amendment.
But still for a while, for 20 years, the courts weren’t buying this idea that the Second Amendment meant that we could not regulate the ownership of guns or the sales of guns. And by the way, we'd allowed: ”Oh, you can’t buy machine guns, you can’t have a sawed-off shotgun.” Those things happened over the course of the 20th century, and nobody said boo.

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

In the last 30 years religion has radicalized American politics and seriously harmed the perception of science, says journalist and author Kurt Andersen. This can be directly tied to the rise of the Christian Right in the 20th century. To see this, you only have to look at the response to the same question posed to Republican presidential candidates over three election cycles, from 2008 to 2016: "Do you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" In 2008, the majority answered yes. In 2012, there were notably less. In 2016? There was only one of 17 candidates who said he did—Jeb Bush, and even he began to backpedal as he answered. "I don’t believe all those people believed what they said," says Andersen, "I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say 'yes' to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind, and that’s where it becomes problematic." From climate change to Creationism and outright conspiracy theories, Andersen points to how the Republican party has come to increasingly incorporate fantasy and wishful untruths into its approach to social, economic, and foreign policy—and it's turning America into an anti-science spectacle. Kurt Andersen is the author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-how-religion-turned-american-politics-against-science
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: In 2008, the big Republican presidential candidates were asked: "How many of you believe in Darwinian biological evolution?" Two-thirds or three-quarters said, "I do." In 2012, the same question was asked, same group of people—Republican presidential candidates—and it was already down to a third. In 2016, the 17 main candidates for the Republican nomination were asked: "Do you believe in evolution?" One, Jeb Bush, brave Jeb Bush, said he did—"but," he said, walking it back even as he said it, “I’m not sure it should be taught in our public schools, and if it is, it should be taught along with Creationism.” So from 2008 to 2016, that was the change and that change is—I don’t believe all those people believed what they said; I don’t think all of them disbelieve in evolution, just some of them—but they were all obliged to say yes to falsehood and magical thinking of this religious kind and that’s where it becomes problematic.
America has always been a Christian nation. That meant a very different thing 100 years ago or even 50 years ago than it means today. I grew up not going to church very often at all and not with much religious education, but all of my friends were weekly, regular churchgoers of various kinds.
ChristianProtestant religion became extreme, it became more magical and supernatural in its beliefs and practices in America than it had been in hundreds of years and more so than it is anywhere else in the developed world. So you have that happening. At the same time, not coincidentally, you have the Republican Party, beginning certainly about 30 years ago, becoming more and more a party of those religiously extreme Protestants. So one thing that has happened and one thing that has led, I think, the Republican Party to accept fantasy and wishful untruth more and more into its approach to policy—whether it’s climate change or the idea that a secret Muslim conspiracy is about to replace our constitutional judiciary system with Sharia law, or any number of other simply untrue tenants of republicanism—all these things which were nutty fringe ideas as recently as 30 years ago are now in the Republican mainstream. I think there’s a connection. I think once you have a political party, more and more of whose members believe in religious and supernatural fantasies of a more and more extravagant kind, it stands to reason or to unreason that you will have a party that is more and more inclined to embrace the fantastical in its politics and policy. Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your home, in the privacy of your family, in the privacy of your church, but when it bleeds over, as it inevitably has done in America, to how we manage and construct our economy and our society, we’re in trouble.

Big Think 2017 Top Ten: #8. Kurt Anderson on the American Tradition of Delusional Thinking

At the time of the Civil War, society had become split by two sides that refused to listen to each other. Back then, the political and social divide is stoked b...

At the time of the Civil War, society had become split by two sides that refused to listen to each other. Back then, the political and social divide is stoked by a hyperbolic partisan media where anyone could publish whatever they wanted in a pamphlet without fact-checking. Sound familiar?
Americans reshaping reality to fit their needs is nothing new, explains Kurt Anderson in our #8 video of the year.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in New England who wanted to create and did create a Christian utopia and theocracy as they waited for the eminent second coming of Christ and the end of days. And in the south by a bunch of people who were convinced, absolutely convinced that this place they’d never been was full of gold just to be plucked from the dirt in Virginia and they stayed there looking and hoping for gold for 20 years before they finally faced the facts and the evidence and decided that they weren’t going to get rich overnight there. So that was the beginning. And then we’ve had centuries of buyer-beware charlatanism to an extreme degree and medical quackery to an extreme degree and increasingly exotic extravagant implausible religions over and over again from Mormonism to Christian Science to Scientology in the last century.
And we’ve had this antiestablishment "I’m not going to trust the experts, I’m not going to trust the elite" from our character from the beginning. Now all those things came together and were super-charged in the 1960s when you were entitled to your own truth and your own reality. Then a generation later when the Internet came along, giving each of those realities, no matter how false or magical or nutty they are, their own kind of media infrastructure. We had entertainment, again for the last couple hundred years, but especially in the last 50 years permeating all the rest of life, including Presidential politics from John F. Kennedy through RonaldRagan to Bill Clinton. So the thing was set up for Donald Trump to exploit all these various American threads and astonishingly become president, but then you look at this history and it’s like no we should have seen this coming.
The idea of America from the beginning was that you could come here, reinvent yourself, be anybody you want, live any way you wanted, believe any thing you wanted. For the first few hundred years, like everywhere else in the world, celebrity and fame were a result of some kind of accomplishment or achievement, sometimes not a great accomplishment or achievement, but you did something in the world to earn renown. America really was the key place that invented the modern celebrity culture, which was, beginning a century ago, more and more not necessarily about having won a war or led a people or written a great book or painted a great painting, but about being famous, fame for its own sake. We created that, we created Hollywood, we created the whole culture industry and that then became what I call the fantasy industrial complex where, certainly in the last few decades more than ever more than anybody thought possible before, fame itself, however you’ve got it, was a primary goal for people. And again, as so many of the things I talk about in Fantasyland, not uniquely to America but more here than anywhere. And then you get reality television, which was this unholy hybrid of the fictional and the real for the last now generation where that blur between what’s real and what’s not is pumped into our media stream willy-nilly. There are now more reality shows on television than there were shows on television 20 years ago. And that’s another way for nobodies to become famous overnight. YouTube, another way for nobodies to become a famous overnight for doing almost nothing or nothing.

At the time of the Civil War, society had become split by two sides that refused to listen to each other. Back then, the political and social divide is stoked by a hyperbolic partisan media where anyone could publish whatever they wanted in a pamphlet without fact-checking. Sound familiar?
Americans reshaping reality to fit their needs is nothing new, explains Kurt Anderson in our #8 video of the year.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/kurt-andersen-magical-thinking-americas-most-enduring-quality
FollowBigThink here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink
Transcript: Americans have always been magical thinkers and passionate believers in the untrue. We were started by the Puritans in New England who wanted to create and did create a Christian utopia and theocracy as they waited for the eminent second coming of Christ and the end of days. And in the south by a bunch of people who were convinced, absolutely convinced that this place they’d never been was full of gold just to be plucked from the dirt in Virginia and they stayed there looking and hoping for gold for 20 years before they finally faced the facts and the evidence and decided that they weren’t going to get rich overnight there. So that was the beginning. And then we’ve had centuries of buyer-beware charlatanism to an extreme degree and medical quackery to an extreme degree and increasingly exotic extravagant implausible religions over and over again from Mormonism to Christian Science to Scientology in the last century.
And we’ve had this antiestablishment "I’m not going to trust the experts, I’m not going to trust the elite" from our character from the beginning. Now all those things came together and were super-charged in the 1960s when you were entitled to your own truth and your own reality. Then a generation later when the Internet came along, giving each of those realities, no matter how false or magical or nutty they are, their own kind of media infrastructure. We had entertainment, again for the last couple hundred years, but especially in the last 50 years permeating all the rest of life, including Presidential politics from John F. Kennedy through RonaldRagan to Bill Clinton. So the thing was set up for Donald Trump to exploit all these various American threads and astonishingly become president, but then you look at this history and it’s like no we should have seen this coming.
The idea of America from the beginning was that you could come here, reinvent yourself, be anybody you want, live any way you wanted, believe any thing you wanted. For the first few hundred years, like everywhere else in the world, celebrity and fame were a result of some kind of accomplishment or achievement, sometimes not a great accomplishment or achievement, but you did something in the world to earn renown. America really was the key place that invented the modern celebrity culture, which was, beginning a century ago, more and more not necessarily about having won a war or led a people or written a great book or painted a great painting, but about being famous, fame for its own sake. We created that, we created Hollywood, we created the whole culture industry and that then became what I call the fantasy industrial complex where, certainly in the last few decades more than ever more than anybody thought possible before, fame itself, however you’ve got it, was a primary goal for people. And again, as so many of the things I talk about in Fantasyland, not uniquely to America but more here than anywhere. And then you get reality television, which was this unholy hybrid of the fictional and the real for the last now generation where that blur between what’s real and what’s not is pumped into our media stream willy-nilly. There are now more reality shows on television than there were shows on television 20 years ago. And that’s another way for nobodies to become famous overnight. YouTube, another way for nobodies to become a famous overnight for doing almost nothing or nothing.

Kurt Andersen on climate change

In this clip from Overheard, author Kurt Andersen argues that climate change deniers are successful in convincing others that climate change isn't occurring in ...

In this clip from Overheard, author Kurt Andersen argues that climate change deniers are successful in convincing others that climate change isn't occurring in part because of human gullibility.
------
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/overheardpbs
Facebook: facebook.com/overheardwithevansmith
Full length episodes online: http://www.klru.org/overheard

In this clip from Overheard, author Kurt Andersen argues that climate change deniers are successful in convincing others that climate change isn't occurring in part because of human gullibility.
------
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/overheardpbs
Facebook: facebook.com/overheardwithevansmith
Full length episodes online: http://www.klru.org/overheard

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic hosted by Jeffrey Goldberg (Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic), Matt Thompson (Deputy Editor, The Atlantic), and Alex Wagner (Co-host, CBS This Morning: Saturday; Contributing Editor, The Atlantic). We're living in historic times. Who better than a 160-year-old magazine to help you make sense of them? Each week, The Atlantic's top editors sit down with leading voices to explore what's happening in the world, how things became the way they are, and where they're going next.

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic hosted by Jeffrey Goldberg (Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic), Matt Thompson (Deputy Editor, The Atlantic), and Alex Wagner (Co-host, CBS This Morning: Saturday; Contributing Editor, The Atlantic). We're living in historic times. Who better than a 160-year-old magazine to help you make sense of them? Each week, The Atlantic's top editors sit down with leading voices to explore what's happening in the world, how things became the way they are, and where they're going next.

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

"Fantasyland" Author Kurt Andersen / Introducing InPen

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps...

published: 05 Sep 2017

Danny Goldberg – Ep. 35 – Kurt Andersen

DannyGoldberg – Ep. 35 – Kurt Andersen: https://youtu.be/9r0YkIkKZ2k
Danny Goldberg – Ep. 35 – Kurt Andersen: https://beherenownetwork.com/danny-goldberg-ep-35-kurt-andersen/
================
On this episode of Rock and Roles, Danny speaks with author Kurt Andersen about the role of fantasy in American history and our current culture.
“The newest book from Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire a 500 Year History, is one of the most insightful I’ve read about the cultural undercurrents of the U.S. that brought us to the Trump era. Andersen is also a brilliant novelist, the former editor of New York Magazine and Spy Magazine and he is the host of the public radio show Studio 360.” – Danny Goldberg
ShowNotes
Fantasyland (Opening) – In Fantasyland, Kurt Andersen explores t...

published: 03 Oct 2017

Kurt Andersen reads from Fantasyland

Kurt Andersen takes the long view on fake news in his new book "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History", arguing that huckstering has always been part of America's DNA.
WGBHForumNetwork ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas
Like us: http://facebook.com/wgbhforum
Tweet with us: http://twitter.com/ForumNetwork
See our complete archive here: http://forum-network.org

NEWS & POLITICS - RadioAtlantic - Ep #5: Kurt Andersen on How AmericaLost Its Mind
When did the reality-based community start losing to reality show celebrity? Why are "alternative facts" and fake news suddenly ubiquitous features of the landscape? The spread of American magical thinking isn't, in fact, sudden, argues Kurt Andersen in the September 2017Atlantic. It was rooted in the very origins of the nation, and started to blossom in the '60s. Andersen explores how these forces made their way to the White House in conversation with our Radio Atlantic cohosts, Jeffrey Goldberg, Alex Wagner, and Matt Thompson.
==============
Please subscribe for more updates at: https://goo.gl/AQGkTV
G+: https://goo.gl/sDsQhq
=============
DESCRIPTION
A weekly flagship podcast from The Atlantic ho...

Sam Harris and Guest Deconstruct Donald Trump

Sam Harris talks to writer Kurt Andersen about this book and the role of Donald Trump in the American psyche. The discuss how the media both mass and social tools like Facebook and Twitter are shaping America today.
To listen to the full interview and others please go and Support the Sam Harris Podcast at: www.samharris.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/M_Robespierre

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles t...

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

Has the great American experiment in liberty gone off the rails? Best-selling novelist, public radio host, and acclaimed cultural critic Kurt Andersen tackles that question in his latest book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, due out in September. Get a sneak preview of this provocative chronicle of magical thinking and make-believe that provides a new paradigm for understanding the post-factual present, in which reality and illusion are dangerously blurred.
Featuring:
Kurt Andersen
Jeffrey Goldberg

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Kurt Andersen about the American aptitude for unfounded belief, the religious lunacy of the Puritans, populist mistrust of authority, the link between postmodernism and religious fundamentalism, the unique history of American religious entrepreneurship, the Trump phenomenon, the effect of fame on politics, and other topics.
Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York, and was a cultural columnist and critic for Time and The New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. His most recent book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History.
Twitter: @KBAndersen
Discuss this in the forums.
Do you find the Waking Up podcast valuable?
You can support the show directly at: https://samharris.org/subscribe
Supporters get access to Sam's "Ask Me Anything" episodes, advance tickets to live events, and other exclusive content.
More information at https://www.samharris.org
--
Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samharrisorg
Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

GW and Politics and ProsePresentAlec Baldwin with Kurt AndersenWorking the special magic of political satire, this memoir unfolds in a time when the Trump presidency is history. America’s foremost Trump scholar and its foremost Trump impersonator, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin, join forces to channel Trump’s reminisces on how he made America great again. Building on Baldwin’s wildly popular Trump impressions on Saturday Night Live, the novelist and actor together present the future former chief executive’s thoughts on White House protocol, world leaders, his family, the media, and much more.
http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525521990
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/
Produced by Tom Warren

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps. Stacey talks to Tony Galliani from Companion Medical about the product and the company.
-----
Get our App and listen to DiabetesConnections wherever you go!
Click here for iPhone Click here for AndroidSign up for our newsletter here
As always, thanks for listening!!

Best-selling author and radio host Kurt Anderson is out with a blockbuster book, "Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500 year history." You may have seen him on the cover of The Atlantic Magazine and all over cable news this month. But you may not know he lives with type 1 diabetes.
Stacey and Kurt talk about Fantasyland, as well as his other books like the fictional True Believers, where the main character has type 1.
Our CommunityConnection calls attention to the heroes of the T1D relief efforts in Texas after Hurricane Harvey (Listen to our full episode here and find links to help/information)
In Shoptalk this week, hear about a brand new product. It's called InPen and it aims to give people who use shots the same calculations & ease of use as people who use pumps. Stacey talks to Tony Galliani from Companion Medical about the product and the company.
-----
Get our App and listen to DiabetesConnections wherever you go!
Click here for iPhone Click here for AndroidSign up for our newsletter here
As always, thanks for listening!!

DannyGoldberg – Ep. 35 – Kurt Andersen: https://youtu.be/9r0YkIkKZ2k
Danny Goldberg – Ep. 35 – Kurt Andersen: https://beherenownetwork.com/danny-goldberg-ep-35-kurt-andersen/
================
On this episode of Rock and Roles, Danny speaks with author Kurt Andersen about the role of fantasy in American history and our current culture.
“The newest book from Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire a 500 Year History, is one of the most insightful I’ve read about the cultural undercurrents of the U.S. that brought us to the Trump era. Andersen is also a brilliant novelist, the former editor of New York Magazine and Spy Magazine and he is the host of the public radio show Studio 360.” – Danny Goldberg
ShowNotes
Fantasyland (Opening) – In Fantasyland, Kurt Andersen explores the unique history of America and shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, “fake news” moment we find ourselves in—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. He and Danny talk about the role that fantasy has played in the evolution of our nation’s identity.
Ethics and Materialism (10:10) – The two discuss the drastic shift change from religious moralism to materialist ethics in American history.
“Starting in our beloved 60’s, doing your own thing also applied to the Ayn Randian—libertarian, get as much as I can—perspective.” – Kurt Andersen
Useful Idiots and the Counterculture (17:00) – Danny and Kurt explore the idea that the well-intentioned activism of the 60’s, despite all the good accomplished, is largely responsible for our current political climate. Kurt discusses how the evolving zeitgeist of the 60’s has affected our modern society.
“What blew up then, in what I call a big bang, was this relativism about any belief is not to be dismissed, any belief is acceptable, and we can’t distinguish between superior and inferior ways of understanding the world.” – Kurt Andersen
Holding on to Fantasies (28:00) – While our national character generally evolves as a whole, there are still pockets of culture that evolve in their own way and come to affect the greater national identity. Kurt talks about the Civil War and how the Southern identity that emerged from it has influenced modern politics and culture.
“There was slavery and the civil war. 150 years later we are still working that out and is a large part of the bad fantasies that many Americans hold.” – Kurt Andersen
Moving the Spotlight (32:50) – There is a national fantasy that says the American political and social climate we live in is at the darkest point in its history. Kurt talks about how this fantasy came to be and what we can do to move forward in a positive way.
This podcast from Rock and Roles is just one of many podcasts on the Be Here NowNetwork. For more from the archive visit: https://beherenownetwork.com/category/danny-goldberg/
================
Make sure not to miss a single video podcast from Be Here Now Network! Click here to Subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc1lvEoC5PZWm-MzgUfJQfg
================
Be Here Now Network
Podcasts, Courses, and Articles to help you live a Life in Balance.
Heart Centered wisdom from Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Krishna Das + many more!
Get a Free Guided Meditation from Sharon Salzberg when you first sign up at:
https://beherenownetwork.com/
================
Follow Be Here Now Network:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeHereNowNetwork/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beherenownet
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beherenownetwork/
====================================

DannyGoldberg – Ep. 35 – Kurt Andersen: https://youtu.be/9r0YkIkKZ2k
Danny Goldberg – Ep. 35 – Kurt Andersen: https://beherenownetwork.com/danny-goldberg-ep-35-kurt-andersen/
================
On this episode of Rock and Roles, Danny speaks with author Kurt Andersen about the role of fantasy in American history and our current culture.
“The newest book from Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire a 500 Year History, is one of the most insightful I’ve read about the cultural undercurrents of the U.S. that brought us to the Trump era. Andersen is also a brilliant novelist, the former editor of New York Magazine and Spy Magazine and he is the host of the public radio show Studio 360.” – Danny Goldberg
Show